The Best, Really

Lyrics

Sleep Like a stone

I'll fly all tonight, all to try and amplify. My spine it moves my bones from brain, impulses out and back again. The skies are open.

My mind is like a mirror sometimes. When I turn the faces melt away, and I find I see clearer when I keep from yearning and aching for what I don't have. And I'll pull myself together and sleep like a stone.

Sleep love, sleep all night long. I'll be back when it's over. Keeping it all to my own, I'll be new then forever.

Til I've Been Forgotten

17th of July. Night falls by the riverside. Ocean moves in heavy on the wharf. Rain sweeps down in warm, fat sheets, blackens the streets.

Bridge over the East River shines with a thousand eyes, no surprise. The lights flash blue and red. All the world's a stage. I couldn't remember what she said. I couldn't act my age.

Til I've been forgotten I'll tell it like it is.

Old man's being unhelpful. He keeps rambling on about ancient events, half-finished stories of no consequence. He says, I will die and the world will never change. So I say, til I've been forgotten I'll tell it like it is.

Airports

She sees pretty cityscapes. Each skyline is different. She tarries in airports. She knows them from memory. She knows how to be alone.

Her cities were once mankind's greatest achievements, all grey and brown edges like a Cubist painting. Her visits are presents and I'm the receiver, but how can I love her if I never see her? She knows how to be alone.

It's okay to want to come home.

Voyager

I'm taking a break from this same old place. I'll go see what's to be seen. Goodbye. It's for the best, really.

Is this the lightness of the sky at dawn? Got to keep my curtains drawn. That’s all that I know. Everybody tells me so.

I’m the loneliest one.

The Infrastructure

Burnout's in the air, rolling up the coast like fog. Fitful evening prayers, they're just singing along.

I am most awake at the knife's edge of your lonely slumber that the night comes sending.

If you stay here too long you'll blend in like the infrastructure.

Remain here too long, you'll end up like the infrastructure, decaying away.

Old greens turn to grey. Old greys turn to brown. Scenes flash through the rust belt and the dust belt towns.

Absent Friends

All the best stories come to rest on your lips with ease. Yours is a life lived.

Night walks on cobblestones buried deep like dinosaur bones, murder-dark stumbled ends best unwound before absent friends. Yours is a life lived.

Tomorrow sky bruised and grey, curtains of rain wash the colors away. Darkest heart made to roam, where will you find a home? Yours is a life lived.

Empty

Sorry for the suggestion. The night in question was cold and grey. Relax, she told me, you cannot hold me to anything I say. I feel so empty.

A sudden spasm, she slipped in like a phantasm and blended into the background like a painting on a wall. The tendril gloom of that smoke filled room, a testament to the power of the greatest love of all. I feel so empty.

The pink flamingos and their cocktail party, they eat big and they laugh hearty. Ho ho ho. They turn the color of whatever they eat and then two by two they stumble out into the street. Single blossom passing Boston as the streetlights keep sliding by. She took me where I wanted to go. Where we go from there I don’t really know. I feel so empty.

The West Is Burning

All the fat faces say the same name, arms akimbo, mouths agape, eyes glued to the global game.

Gallop on high bridge tonight. City burns on dead starlight. A world reversed, and you've been gone so long.

The West is burning.

Save these people from this desiccated place. Kindling goes to fire, dust to flame. Could have seen this coming, nothing to be done under the sun.

See these people fleeing this desiccated place. Kindling goes to fire, dust to flame. Could have seen this coming, nothing to be done. There's nothing new under the sun.

You've forgotten your life.

The West is burning.

How Holes In The Sky Are Filled

A straightened line, a system disciplined. An iris scan will prove it's you and only you of course.

Ten thousand.

A waiting low waltzing in Low City as buildings become mountains til you can't see your apartment from the ground.

Ten thousand.

A rising tower, an inverted sunflower. It takes the sun, distributes to everyone. A skyline grows, holes in the sky are filled. Eternal life where one love story follows on another.

Ten thousand.

The Crepuscular

Say goodnight in the twilight.

All the footsteps skyward all day long, none of that matters anymore.

This is the last go-round, the longest by far, the river of black tar, reflecting cars, laid out like the stars.

No soul-sucking days, no crepuscular haze can keep me away, baby.

Send me to sleep, even if we remember nothing in the morning.

Goodnight in the twilight. Derelict industry, by the estuary we can see the city settle in for the night.

The Progressive Metamorphism of Shale

Young shale, many directions, many possibilities, adding heat and pressure, growing, growing, changing. Hit it with a hammer. Tell them everything to a single letter.

The highest grade that you can get. Lay it down and let it set until the end.

Weathering until it becomes sedentary, becomes elemental, only one direction. Send it down the river. Keep it for the record.

Love & Urban Planning

All cities look the same. All streetlights are orange. All clubs give me a headache. Everyone leaves without warning. All cities are just buildings constructed over centuries, their futures resilient, undulating before me. But you’ll see when I find a home.

All parties are noxious. Everybody is shy but too proud to admit it. From time to time, so am I. But you’ll see, I’ll make it home.

Eye contact is dangerous. Desire seems like a memory. Days full of construction and nights full of dead machines. A warm glance for no reason, soft focus the eye, the odd touch of the season. I’m just trying to get by. But you’ll see, I’ll build a home someday.

Evening Metropolitan Transport Is All Numbers And Directions

14 times I've made my way down here. 13 I've walked away piss-drunk and pissed off. Give me a reason to round another round on that ride. There's no starlight to guide me in on my trip south from Morningside.

And right now she's just the last one to learn. She was 65 degrees from a 180 turn.

Goodbye sky, junior rank orange belted troposphere. Skyway takes me westward to 15 miles from here. When the sunlight glances off the city's westward flank, it's the only time of day when the whole world's awake.

Forth, lay 4th, gliding on a smog fog down Spring Street, young and mighty, golden green, they're here for the art, they're here for the beer. Yesterday's rain waiting to erupt in the steam vein. Under the eternal eyes the cold plastic people rise.